Twice Tempted: Between Two Alphas (Mia and Cameron)

Chapter 85

Chapter Eighty-Five

I take the steps down. At the darkest point, the faintest crack shows from beneath the door in the

kitchen. It’s like a shard of light. Below, as I keep descending, it gradually lightens. The flicker of

torches casts a golden orange glow against the stone walls. I smell the torches first.

At the bottom of the tunnel is a giant open room. It’s domed and stalactites and stalagmites dot the

ceilings and floor. The room is awash with a minerally scent. It isn’t pungent like sulfur or briny like the

ocean, although there is a touch of each. It’s something older. I don’t know that I’ve ever encountered

this scent before.

Torches ring the walls and at least a dozen ‘sisters’ are spaced around a bubbling pool. The water has

rings of different colors, like you might see in a hot spring.

Valaria smiles.

Something in her expression makes me leery.

I want to cross my arms but instead I stand still.

“Well,” she says bemusedly, “in you go. What are you waiting for?”

The water is murky in the middle. There are no stairs or ladder. I don’t know how deep this pool goes or

what else might be living or lurking in it.

And it’s bubbling. I’m not real keen on being boiled alive.

I hike up my white gown and dip a toe into the pool.

It’s hot, but not uncomfortably.

I step one foot in–

“Lose the gown,” she says.

Of course.

I peel it over my head and one of the sisters accepts it. She drapes it over her arm.

The women watch me. I’m not terribly self-conscious about my body, but I can’t say I’m comfortable

with their attention either. There is something in the way they study me that makes tendrils of

foreboding dance along my skin.

I move quicker, thinking it’s better to just get this over with.

Once I step off the ledge, I don’t feel a ‘bottom’. I float. I actually feel extra buoyant. It must be whatever

salts or minerals are in this water.

“Get comfortable,” she tells me.

The pool is probably thirty feet across. Around the room, I see tunnels, presumably leading upward into

different homes or parts of the island. There are no other markings, none that I can see at least. With

only torchlight and my wolf eyes to go by, I can make out shapes and depth and movement, but I’m not

entirely sure what else I should be looking for.

If this is a sacred space–and I sense that it is–it seems like there should be more elaborate markings. All rights © NôvelDrama.Org.

One by one, the women come and extinguish their torches in the pool before turning and walking back

out one of the many tunnels. As the room gets darker, I feel my anxiousness ratcheting up.

“How long will I be here?” I ask.

Valaria shrugs. “As long as it takes.”

She extinguishes her torch and I count the sounds of her footsteps as they retreat.

After a time, the darkness is absolute.

There is no light. Not from above or below.

The water is hot, but almost a match for my body temperature, so I can’t even feel the difference. I

float, my ears are submerged, so that masks any sound. The only scents come from this watery cave

and after a while, I’m immune to those too.

I understand what this is.

A sensory deprivation chamber.

Having spent time in California, I know people pay good money for these types of experiences. They

use them to decompress, to stimulate their senses and creativity. To relax.

Nothing about this is relaxing to me.

I can’t judge time or my surroundings. I’m alone. In the dark. In a weightless, suspended state.

I try to clear my mind.

But as I drift, I’m barraged with memories and worries. Images of my kids. Of Cam and Eric. Even

Ashley. I replay Corinne dying.

I think of my mother, maybe doing the same thing I am right now when she first came to this island. Did

she embrace this ceremony with fear–the way I am? Or excitement?

I’ll never know.

I cry for a while, I think.

I touch my stomach and think of my baby.

Then I drift. Letting my thoughts ebb away like the water.

Time ceases to have meaning.

It may be minutes or hours.

I might sleep, I’m not sure.

Something is supposed to happen, but I’m not sure what that is or how to control it or provoke it.

My heartbeat speeds up. I can’t feel the water or even the air. I force my limbs to move but even

swimming doesn’t seem to have any sensation. I take deep breaths and try to relax.

More time passes–I think.

Gradually it’s like tiny stars appear above me. I blink and blink, thinking I’m hallucinating. Then they

start to converge. I watch them, like a show, only I think what I’m seeing is space and time and a

glimpse into a universe that is too infinite to even conceive.

The colors are faint. Blues and purples. Reds and shades of white.

Always white.

The colors condense on themselves, accumulating into a ball of energy that is black and endless and

teeming with … everything.

I blink rapidly, but see nothing.

Feel nothing.

But when I try to breathe, it’s water that fills my lungs.

The darkness is the pool–and I’ve sunk into its inky depths.